


Red Jay Farm

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Contemporary AU, F/M, heritage livestock for the win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss Everdeen’s farm needs a new logo, but she has history with the graphic designer. Written for Prompts in Panem round 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Jay Farm

Peeta Mellark leans toward her invitingly.

“So why don’t we start by you telling me a bit about where you want to take Red Jay Farm in the next few years. What new things you have in mind, what accomplishments you’re proud of, who your core customers are, that kind of thing.”

Katniss frowns and glances at her business partner, seated next to her at the table. Johanna Mason is usually interested in having the first word, the last word, and a number of well-chosen words in between. And she was the one who’d insisted they hire a graphic designer in the first place. But she just sits back and gestures as if to say, _your move, Everdeen_.

Katniss clears her throat. “Well, heritage livestock breeding is really taking off. It goes along with other foodie stuff.” Oh god, is foodie a pejorative term? Has she put her foot in it already? “I mean the local food movement. And getting away from industrial-scale food production, and facing up to climate change and loss of biodiversity. So um … we want to keep pace with that interest, and meet the demand that’s out there. Get out ahead of it if possible. But we want to still be small, you know? To not go to the dark side. But still to grow. But to be local.” She stops, having confused herself.

Not that she’s never confused herself in front of this guy before. He nods and jots a couple things down as she finishes speaking. All professional and businesslike, as if he’d never kissed her the way he had.

Peeta was a friend of a friend of Johanna’s, and she’d set them up on a date about a year ago that had gone … _too_ well. Bluegrass and barbecue, and he looked like he’d learned to dress for the city (apparently for that design degree) but he acted like he was home. Toward the end of the evening, while they were taking a break from dancing, he’d leaned her up against a stack of haybales and kissed her, and this energy moved through her, and she’d felt like she was suddenly home, too, where she could stay forever.

It was everything she never wanted. How her mind tilted off its axis toward him. She didn’t need that in her life. Didn’t want it. Knew how badly it could go wrong. So in the morning, she slipped out silently. And he never called.

And now she can’t stop looking at him across the table in her farm office, at his jaw and the shape of his hands. He says cheerily, “This all is in keeping with what I hear from other clients in the area, CSAs, farmers’ markets. It’s definitely a movement, and it has its challenges. So let’s help you stand out. I know that there aren’t that many meat producers, so you’re obviously different there. But what makes this business personal for you?”

That’s the point. Business shouldn’t be personal. It had taken a long time to almost forget about him, and Johanna had some clue about all that, but then she goes and hires him to get them a new logo and marketing materials or some such, and he’s looking at Katniss all warmly. Katniss scowls at the tabletop.

“You know what’s fun about being in the animal business, as opposed to fruits and vegetables?” At last, Johanna is helping her out here. “They have sex.”

Nope. Not helping.

“They get it on, quite enthusiastically I may add, and then they have cute little chicks and piglets and goat kids.” Johanna is smirking a bit, but not so that anybody who didn’t know her would be able to tell. Peeta is just smiling politely, as if he’d like nothing better than to hear about goats breeding. “Think that could go in some of our media?”

He laughs a little and scratches the back of his neck. “The cute factor is definitely good. The sex, uh, probably not the message you want for the broadest appeal.”

Johanna shrugs. “Actually, here’s something that’s interesting. Heritage breeds still have all their instincts, you know? They’re real, they’ve got their lives to live, they’re not just, you know, mutants that can’t remember how to do anything other than eat. They aren’t just dull-eyed machines that take whatever they’re given. These critters remember how to be curious, how to be alive. We just help them carry on.”

Katniss looks up to find Peeta looking quizzical. Both of them start to turn in her direction and she quickly drops her gaze back to the tabletop. She hears the scritch of pen on paper as Peeta makes another note. “Yeah, this is interesting,” he agrees, with caution traded for a little of the cheeriness in his voice.

Katniss figures Johanna should change the subject, like maybe to how they met in ag college and decided to work together to take the Everdeen family farm into the future by taking it back to the past, but she doesn’t. “A lot of these breeds, it’s about finding them in the first place, and learning how they operate and what kind of conditions they’re suited for. Often they’re super hardy. Good survivors.”

Johanna and Peeta are looking at each other all seriously now. Good god, what are they even talking about? How is this supposed to turn into a marketing pitch?

“To save them, we have to eat them,” Katniss blurts. They both look at her alertly. She blunders on, “They taste great, that’s the point. They’re the result of our ancestors’ hard work and they’ll do us well in the future and they’re nice to work with. And so we should eat more of them.”

Peeta is just staring at her. She wonders if she’s turning red. Sometimes she regrets ever feeling passionate about her animals, because it sounds ridiculous when she tries to talk about it. She wonders if she can leave them in the meeting and go out to the barns where she won’t be misunderstood.

His eyes flit over to Johanna, then down to his notes. “I think I understand,” he says quietly. Then he smiles up at her, and it’s a different kind of smile from earlier. “And Katniss, you’re writing your own pitch here. This is exactly the kind of feeling that … well, that I can only hope to help convey. Forget the market positioning stuff, Johanna and I can put that in the fine print. I’d love to just talk with you more about your animals.”

She feels caught off guard, and looks at Johanna for help. Nothing there but a satisfied expression. He wants to hear her go on about her animals? “Um, okay.”

Now he seems surprised. “Really?”

She has definitely missed something. “Yeah. But, um, I … I just want to be in the barns, okay? You can come out there if you want. So you could see them.”

“I’d really like that.”

Johanna is looking back and forth between them. “Good idea. It’s a nice day, go take some pictures for the website or something. Try pasture four.”

Katniss blinks. “That’s the stud pasture.”

Peeta, in the midst of gathering his things, pauses.

“I mean pasture, uh, the farthest one. Nice stand of trees.” Johanna waves her hand.

“Okay. Aren’t you coming?”

“No, I think you guys should work on content. New logo isn’t going to mean anything if the heart isn’t in it. That’s all you.”

Johanna claims to only care about the logistical challenges of farming as a business, to leave the animals to Katniss’s expert care. But Katniss finds the prospect of showing Peeta around the farm by herself is not as unappealing as she would have thought.

This farm is home, after all. And if he can help her make it a success, well, she’ll allow him. She might even welcome him.


End file.
